Gone With the Wind

amother

Mint

Thu, Apr 04 2024, 12:39 pm

DVOM wrote:

I very much disagree that it's a 'trashy romance novel'!

The best part of every story, in any form, is always going to be a love story. It's one of the reasons why most Jewish novels are so... boring. They don't address the most basic and powerful human quest for love. Finding someone to love and receive love from is the core of human existence. If your book or play or film doesn't address that, it's going to feel flat.

So yes, this is a love story, but nothing trashy about it!

I completely disagree, there are other values and there are great books that feature them be it friendship, war, history, crime. Not every great book needs to be a love story, definitely not.

Amarante

Thu, Apr 04 2024, 12:52 pm

Loved it as a teenager and as posted upthread, it is one of the rare books in which th movie version is just as good - different than just as good.

Obviously it is racist because it was written by a Southern woman of a certain class in 1937 when the South was still strongly Jim Crow. It is a lament to the romance of an pre-Civil War South - a fantasy which ignored the reality of slavery.

The equivalent would be a historical romance in which the lifestyle of the Pharaoh was romanticized with happy stereotypical Jewish slaves living the "good life".

I don't agree with bowdlerizing literature in order to take out the portions which may be offensive. It shouldn't be done for Merchant of Venice or Huckleberry Finn either.

However, I don't think there is anything wrong with providing historical context for it.

As to whether it is trashy romance, I don't think so anymore than Jane Eyre is. They are popular fiction - no more and no less. Probably more interesting than any of the 1000's of romantic frothy novels that are published every year.

Amarante

Thu, Apr 04 2024, 1:14 pm

sequoia wrote:

Mammy’s family is never mentioned. Her children were probably sold away from her.

Hattie McDaniels won an Oscar for her portrayal of Mammy but faced a lot of prejudice in her career - not to mention the stereotypical Mammy role itself

What challenges did Hattie McDaniel face?

McDaniel experienced racism and racial segregation throughout her career, and as a result, she was unable to attend the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta because it was held in a whites-only theater. At the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles, she sat at a segregated table at the side of the room.